This Modern Love
by QuixoticCellist
Summary: Gail meets a wondrous stranger one morning, and that is that. Like all love stories, there is the moment, and then there is the aftermath. Let's throw them together and see where it goes, shall we?
1. Chromatic

**Hello goodbye.**

* * *

_I will set sailing  
__like a character in a book-  
__I think this is what its like to be free._

There was nothing else like dusk on the water. THis was not the same water, though. This water was much bigger, and much more open. But there was still nothing like it. Before the sun hits it, before the chop sets in that seems to accompany the angry drivers honks and the general disregard for the solitude of daybreak. But now, before that, before the wind grew harsh and blew the coolness off the froth like a child with hot chocolate, so that it whooshed its way between the buildings and through tunnels and ruffled newspapers against storefronts and meandering with pedestrians, now, the lake was calm and docile and on my left this time by. When it was on my left it meant I would be home eventually, and the sun would rise shortly. At least completely. Now it was stuck in limbo, already rising over the ocean, already starting to creep up in Maine. Already slipping into the sky in the east, while here its strongest and bravest rays only made the sky a little less dark. The prelude of dawn, was, in my personal opinion, much better than the actual crack. Like a cymbal crash, it just broke the plane of the sky and did a violence to the start of the day. Not now though. The water was unaware that it would be blistered and battered by the sun, and instead continued its love affair with the moon for a little longer.

It was nothing like my grandfather's lake. My grandfather's lake was smaller. My grandfather's lake was still so large you could not skip rocks across, no matter how hard I threw, or he threw, or anyone threw. It was still large enough that you needed a boat. It was still large enough that it got a name that was printed on maps if you got out a magnifying glass and looked hard enough for it in the right place. Sometimes it was not in the right place. But close enough. My grandfather's lake perfected the orchestra of dawn. It rose from the very reeds, along the lips of the lapping shore, it was the single call of the frogs at first, still dreamy from the night before and already hungry for the day. The water was placid and the trees filtered the light a greenish-ly hued gold that seemed to hold time captive for hundreds of years. My grandfather's lake was magic.

Lake Ontario was a poor substitute, but a substitute nonetheless. It served its purpose and let me run around it without any complaint. Perhaps it was insulting to call it a poor substitute then.

That thought made me slow slightly and wonder how I had gotten there, to thinking about my grandfather's lake. I never thought of my grandfather's lake. It was my favorite place on the planet, but I didn't think about it because it was the one place I could never have.

I stopped running completely and turned towards the lake with my hands above my head. I flopped onto the sand and laid there for a moment. Not because I was tired, but because I was formulating and remembering. This would be useful to me. I should write about it. I could write about it. I'd tried before and failed inevitably with the blinking cursor mocking me for hours at a time while I typed letters, erased, and repeated, forever daunted by the infallible whiteness of the page at hand. Writing by hand was not much better. Instead of white pages that looked as if I hadn't done anything like on my laptop, I was left with blacked out pages that looked like the most redacted files in the FBI archive. Entire pages, blacked to oblivion, entire pens used and scratched and papers shredded with my erasure.

I took a deep breath and listened for the crack of the sun. My eyelids grew lighters. I strained, waiting for it. Of course it would never come, but in the quiet that I'd imposed on myself, the rattling of a storefront's metal cage did the trick of convincing me I'd heard the crack.

Slowly, no longer eager to run or sprint, or make myself completely miserable with the repetitive nagging of my hypothalamus on my soles, I walked towards the noise. I wiped sand from me as best I could, and I walked down the block towards the noise because I had no sense of self-preservation. Not really. It'd been bred out of me and my blood, probably my very chromosomes. The government should look into it, actually. My grandfather had been the youngest son of the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son of a lineage of sons that embarked to this land before it was a good idea, and they all did the same thing. The others son's had died, quite early in their careers. Five hundred and twenty eight years of jailers and police and investigators and detectives and agents and superintendents. We were older than the law, if you thought about it. And I was the youngest daughter of the youngest son, and still I had the same fate as the rest of them, young old or middle, son or daughter, willing or not.

"Excuse me," I wiped my cheek on my shoulder and held my hand out slightly so as not to frighten the tall girl yanking and swearing and kicking at the barricade. "Excuse me," I tried a bit louder. She jumped and sighed, dropping her head and leaning against the metal wall. She mumbled swears in French. I smiled at the sight of it.

"I'm sorry," she turned to me with her head still resting on her arm against the barricade. There was the accent there that gave me chills. Accents were known to do that. They change the game. She righted herself and pushed the hair from her face so it was a sad mess atop her head. She had really pretty eyes. That kind of felt like the sunrise, boisterous and assertive, some might call it beautiful, but I saw the prelude there, the calm and the tepid. She had a long neck as well. Not freakishly long, but slender and I wondered how it felt when the sun it it.

I blinked a few times and tried to will myself to remember it all.

"I asked if I was too loud," she ducked a bit and asked me again. "You know, if you live around here, and I woke you, I'm very sorry."

"Oh!" I shook my head eagerly. "No no no," I promised. "I was just running, and I heard a commotion."

"That would be me," she had a sideways smile that could kill a crocodile. "A fucking commotion-making mess..." She turned back to the task at hand, hands on her hips, which were, also, quite nice. I warned myself to stop and blinked again, repeatedly. Shook my head slightly. Now I wanted to sprint home and spill my brain, just jam a crow bar into my ear and bleed about the empty pages that lived on my desk, painting in the very fold of my cranium. And I wasn't quite sure why.

"First time opening by yourself?" I offered, wishing I had some water and swallowing sand in my throat.

"First time opening it ever," she sighed, gritting her teeth and yanking at it again. I let her go for about a minute. "Fuck's sake. This piece of shit. I don't even fucking care!" She kicked it again. The noise rattled my skull as it did the empty, morning street.

"Okay, easy there, killer," I moved about her and examined it. "We should be smarter than a door, between the two of us."

"You'd think," she seethed. "I'm a fucking PhD student. I have two Masters, and I can't open a fucking door. This is real fucking funny, papá!" she screamed at the sky, hands stretched wide at her sides. She reminded me of a sinner in that moment. Someone bound by fate, chained to a rock, exasperated and expecting.

"Well, I have a BA, so that's like... I don't know maybe something between us," I shrugged, looking for hooks and locks. "It is in Literature though, so that's probably useless in this situation, which is the story of my life," I mumbled to myself as I went about starting.

"I don't even want to open it," she decided, ignoring me. She was pacing on the curb while I worked. "I don't even know why he left it to me. What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Sell flowers?" I offered, looking up for just a moment.

"I don't even like flowers!" she lamented, tossing back her head and resuming her pacing.

Eventually I opened it, pulling this and that. She stopped pacing and uncrossed her arms and unbit her lip long enough to help me push the metal door up. When we finished she stood back a few steps and stared at the front, freshly free of its former cage. I stood to the side and watched her cross her arms and watch the door. She took a deep breath. She looked at her feet and kicked the top of her shoe with the other for a second. She fidgeted, hands moving to her back pockets, elbows jutting.

"Um, thank you," she suddenly remembered me. "Thank you for your help." There wasn't much anger in her now as there had been before. Maybe that was why she looked exhausted.

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded and smiled, trying to tuck my hair behind my hears. No doubt it was flying and awkward. "It was no trouble."

In that moment, where she met my eyes, the street exploded into activity. I suppose it started with a car passing, followed by another and another and another in a line of steady and heavier density. The café across the street had a bell that rang when the door opened, faint above the whirr of tires, but there, nonetheless. The grocer yelled. The pedestrians milled. Life emerged and suddenly it all felt very real, and less like magic. I swallowed and looked at the laces of my trainers because that was the worst.

"I'm sorry," she said again, shaking her head. "Can I... I have to... I should... Can I buy you a coffee, or something?" I snapped my head back to her. Her face was scrunched in thought. "Not many people would have approached me to help, I guess. I wouldn't have, with the kicked and hitting..." I chuckled a bit.

"I actually," I checked my watch. "I should be heading home. I'll be late for work."

"Right," she nodded, staring back at the storefront. "I'd be heading to class, if I were back home." There was a sigh. "Now, I'm here." She turned to me with a pathetic grin. "Who in their right mind would actually miss going to Neuroanatomy?"

"The same who attacked a metal store barrier?" I asked awkwardly. She raised her eyebrows, accepting my conclusion with a nod. "Anyway, I should be off. Good luck, with... this..." I offered half-heartedly because I wasn't sure she wanted or needed it.

"Thanks again," she offered, holding out her hand, waiting for my name.

"Gail," I offered, shaking it.

"Holly," she smiled and relaxed a bit. "If you, you know, run by, stop by. I owe you."

"It was no problem," I reminded her.

"I'll see you, Gail," she gave me a smile and didn't allow me the chance to linger. I nodded.

"Bye," I waved awkwardly, and in such a way that I berated myself the entire jog home. I berated myself for the fact that I turned around to see her again before I turned down the street as well. She was not looking, but simply standing there, shoulders slumped, looking at the building again.

When I got to my apartment, I scrambled to find a pen and I used napkins and scraps of paper until I found my notebook while I wrote. I spilled pens and pencils. I wrote and didn't erase, because today was somehow different. The lake. I thought about the lake, and my grandfather and the girl with the pulchritudinous neck. Her name was Holly. I wrote about my grandfather's cabin, and the way the tadpoles felt between my toes, and the way the bass kissed the sky they didn't even know was there in the morning to get the eager flies that drank dangerously there. I wrote it all down for the first time in months.

I showered and hurried to work, which was probably the worst part of the day. And that was uneventful because I spent the entire day patrolling, and looking out of the window, writing in my head. And wondering about the girl. Because even though I knew her name, she was the girl. And the farther I was from the lake and from the morning, the worst I felt.

It was a boring day. Run of the mill in the sense that it was repetitive, different only in the players. When I saw my brother milling about, I avoided him at all costs, only allowing myself a second to watch him brief, tapping the whiteboard and speaking from his jaw. Sometimes he was my best friend. Others, he was the epitome of everything I wasn't. Always, he was the reason I wasn't allowed to do whatever I wanted. I was the youngest child of the oldest child of the youngest son, and that granted me no more rights or indifference that it had to him.

And so even though it was late, I decided to take a walk down to the lake again after work instead of going to the bar.

Dusk was not as nice as dawn. It was melancholic in a different way. It mourned the day and everything that either happened or did not. The paradox of that was baffling. An infinite strands of the day, and perhaps the ones that did not happen were the worst. I kicked at a can that rattled through the quiet neighborhood. It was slower going than the morning when I sprinted about, running from the daylight. Now, I gave myself up to the dark and walked wholly into it, hands in pockets, shoulders shrugged tightly against my ears in the chilly breeze that the water tossed with its waves at the city.

The flower shop was closed, and the metal grate was only half pulled down. The lights were not on, save for the one in the window illuminating a sign that claimed it to be for sale. I chuckled at the joke of it all. Open for one day, and throwing in the towel already.

I continued towards the beach as a street car scooted past. It wasn't until that moment that I considered my actions. That in the day ending, I considered the strands. Normally I was happy to allow them to play out as they would. I quite enjoyed it. The continual flow of embracing what was to happen. Today, though, it reminded me of how in doing that, I ended up in a job I disliked, in a city that drove me crazy, and incredibly apathetic to nearly everything else. Had I not grabbed hold of another strand and held tightly, could I have ended anywhere else doing anything else? Would I be more miserable? That's the other side of the coin. I had a job I was good at. That might be an understatement. I had a job I was bred to do. I had a job I was innately understanding of because of my childhood. I was the runt of a prizewinning, thoroughbred litter.

When I was nine, I wanted to be a writer. I still wanted to be a writer. Now I was a cop. It came swiftly and easily and I allowed it to happen. Maybe that was what I hated most. And I thought of my grandfather's lake, and how he taught me to fish, and how he told me that I could be whatever I wanted when I was ten. Maybe that's the last time you get to hear something like that. Because if that were true, we'd have a million astronauts and no one driving the streetcar.

My feet stopped at the sidewalk that bordered the sand. I stood there, dumbly, waiting for something. I did this nightly, and every dawn, waiting. I waited for things. I waited for that sign to assure me. I waited for that sign to allow me to run away. I waited. Perhaps that is easier than making a decision. It definitely was, actually.

I watched a small boat glide across the water with only a few lights letting me know of its existence. When it was out of sight, I told myself, I would head home. I would make myself read what I had wrote earlier. That was a pain in and of itself that was unlike any other.

I heaved my breath to the lake and bowed my head slightly so I could turn on my heel and leave.

But I stopped myself and caught someone at the edge of the water, stumbling along. From the outline, I could see the bottle in their hand. I weighed my options. The one hand meant they would fall asleep and wake up with sand everywhere on their person and a headache. The other hand had them drowning. Both were likely.

"Hey!" I shouted. You were never supposed to sneak up on a drunk. They sometimes had weapons, and most always vomited. I jogged towards the body as it flopped onto the sand. "Are you alright?"

"Never better," the girl with the neck from the morning looked up at me, laughed, and ducked her head slightly as she braced her arms on her knees and wiggled the bottle between her hands. "Je n'en reviens pas," she muttered. "Small town. Can I offer you the drink I owe you?"

I looked at her and I looked at the lake. And I looked back at her as she looked back at me. Her face was flushed slightly. This was a strand. I sat beside her and she handed me the bottle. I took a swig and swallowed down my hiss so I wouldn't look lame. It was quiet when I passed it back to her and she took a little drink.

"You're not like a..." she started awkwardly. "You know... a stalker?"

"No no," I tried to promise. "No, I live just a few blocks from here. Sometimes I walk... to clear my head." She laughed at that.

"And what do you have to clear it of, ma caille?" she looked back at the water. "What do any of us have to clear our heads about?"

"Um," I opened my mouth, but instead only a sigh came out. "Perhaps to just not think."

"I can understand that," she rested her head on her hand that was not holding the bottle.

I wanted to tell her about my grandfather's lake, right there, at this lake. Possibly because she was a complete stranger. More so because I think she needed to hear about it in the same way that I needed to talk about it. Instead I took her bottle and drank from it again before handing it back to her.

"I saw the 'for sale' sign in the window," I offered. "First day didn't go so well?" She laughed again. It was genuine.

"I was never going to open," she informed me. She dug the bottle its own holder and leaned back, playing with the sand in her hands. "My father died."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I furrowed my brow and wanted another drink.

"Don't be," she took another drink. Deftly undoing the lid with one hand. "I never met him. And I'm sure that is a good thing." She looked at me while I awkwardly dug in my mind for something to say. I'd never been here before. I didn't know what to do. "I'm sorry. You're a stranger and I'm blathering like I know you or you know me at all. I don't have the right."

"It's fine," I offered. "It's kind of an adventure." She chuckled a bit. "So where are you from?'

"I go to McGill," she informed me. "But my heart," she sighed, staring beyond the water. "Mon coeur is in Pornichet. In France. I am born there."

"You are a ways from home," I observed.

"I was only born there," she informed me, stretching her long legs out in front of her. "When I turned seven, we moved to Quebec. My mother and I. And you?" she asked.

"Oh, I guess..." I tried to figure it out. "I'm from here. It's boring."

"Well, what do you do then, ma caille?" she asked, leaning towards me a bit. I panicked slightly.

"I uh..." I felt the whiskey burning in my the bottom of my belly. "I'm a writer," I lied.

"That would explain the weird hours of strolling about," she observed. "And that is much more exciting."

"No, it's not." I shook my head.

"But it is," she egged me forward. "To write, is to breathe, n'est-ce pas?"

"Um, I guess?" I asked back, unsure because I wasn't. "What do you study? McGill is an amazing school."

"Medicine," she held up the bottle in a tiny form of cheers. "Thanks to my absent papá, I can afford it."

"That's something," I offered.

"Yes," she agreed.

We sat and let the whiskey take its known effects. She spoke about the flower shop and her father's other businesses. She was only there to sign papers and make everything legal to sell. Besides that, she was due back at school within the week. She told me about her mother, and her bakery. And she told me about her favorite places she vaguely remembered as a child. Eventually I told her about my mother, and her brand of crazy. She laughed and I liked it because she laughed and threw her head back and held her side, as if she really enjoyed something. Sometimes people didn't do that anymore. I just wanted the truth of it. She pushed hair away from my face when she calmed slightly.

I told her about my grandfather's lake. I told her about writing this morning. I told her about everything that came into my head, because for the first time in as long as I could remember, I was who I wanted to be. And it came so much easier. The whiskey didn't hurt it at all either. Or the fact that hours passed and we didn't run out of things to talk about. Maybe it was because she was a stranger who became innately known the moment she opened her mouth. Maybe it was the curse my grandmother put on me when I was a child.

"I think..." she looked at me after we were quiet. "This may sound silly."

"It might," I chuckled. "Because of your accent." She gave me a nudge.

"I meant because I am French, as we have... well, we have this thing, in our blood," she laughed to herself at the way it sounded. "We are lovers, we are romantics, we are alive in the moment."

"That's a mighty weird disease," I acknowledged.

"What I mean is, I want to kiss you," she shrugged. "And I don't mind saying it."

"Because you're French?" I chuckled nervously.

"Because I think you're beautiful and oddly charming," she looked at me and I gulped. "And I can say that, too, because I am French."

"Wow," I sighed. "To adventure, then, yeah?" I took her bottle and took a large gulp, followed by another. I met her eye and did it again, then threw the bottle into the lake.

"Prendre courage dans nos mains," she agreed.

I nodded and waited. She leaned towards me and simply brushed her lips against my own. I watched her closed eyes. I stopped breathing. Her jaw moved forward. Her hands found the skin beneath my ear. Her thumb found my cheek and she held me there. She kissed me a bit harder. Her lips pressed. She tasted like whiskey. But something else as well. Something altogether nice, despite it being hidden by the alcohol. I closed my eyes finally and let my head whirl and be kissed.

I felt the heavens and the earths all move. I felt the dawn crack a thousand times in my spine. She hummed to herself and smiled, still holding my cheeks in her hands.

"That's something to write about," she decided for me. "Whiskey on a beach and kissed by a stranger. How did you end up here, I wonder?" she looked at me searchingly. She looked at me period. Perhaps it was the alcohol.

"This could be a great story one day, just so you know— you and me," I sighed and looked at her eyes. They were dark and only rimmed in the smallest line of amber and honey and oak colored iris. "It could defy ages."

"Isn't every story like that though?" she smiled, pulling away a bit. There was an elusiveness and retreat in it.

"Not like this one," I decided with a chuckle, shaking my head.

She looked back at the lake and had that half-smile I was growing to like. It was knowing and sarcastic and egging her on to disagree with me.

"Merde," she shook her head.

"Shit," I agreed as I realized what I said. I should have written it instead of made it a truth. "Shit," I repeated, staring at the lake.

"I'm not worth it, ma caille," she leaned her cheek on her knee and looked at me again.

"Me neither," I realized. She smiled again at that and nodded.

"Merde." That was a whispered, said into her knee.


	2. Bloodshot

**Darling let me sing to you.**

* * *

_Cause they tell me a man is just the sum of his parts-  
Well I'm body and blood and a terrible heart,  
and it all adds up to every different person I've been._

"Ah, come on, Lili," I groaned and pressed the heel of my palm into my temple. "Chut! Please," I begged. "Whisper."

"I was worried sick," she was rattling on quickly still, despite my pleas. I chanced opening one eye and then the other after I closed that one. Inevitably I gave up on that for the moment. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were maimed or who knows what in that dirty city." I laughed once then snorted in pain at what it did to my head. "It is. It is a filthy and ridiculous city," she explained offhandedly. "I can't believe you actually went."

"Curiosity and cats and such," I explained. I heard her shuffling while I took a few breaths to make myself sit up. There was a bit of courage and stupidity in that. I felt them both want to wobble their way out of my stomach when I became righted. I groaned a bit more to keep them deep within me. My mouth tasted like alcohol. Like old and stale and warm alcohol. I burped to myself and wanted to die.

"What happened to you last night?" she asked again. I scratched my head and my hair went everywhere at once. I had sand on me still. I patted my arms a bit. I realized I was nearly naked. That was surprising. Maybe how long it took me to realize it was the surprising part.

"Um," I made myself look about the bedroom. "Life," I decided, dropping my head between my shoulders and keeping it steady with my hand.

"What proof was 'life'?" she asked mockingly. "A nice red, or something more daring like vodka."

"Yuck it up," I scolded. "I was making up for lost time and raided my dear old dad's liquor cabinet." She was quiet, now, on her end. I rubbed my face and stood, surveying the bedroom. "And it was a quite expensive bottle of whiskey, I'll have you know."My clothes were piled at the foot of the bed. Other than a picture of my mother and myself on the dresser, the room was nondescript and looked hardly lived in at all. I had to get rid of everything in it to sell. I didn't want it. I had a trust filled with money, and with the life insurance policy he had, I was willing to practically give it away. "It was either that or expired beer."

"How are you?" my best friend asked quietly, too. Again I rubbed my head and coughed.

"You know," I shrugged even if she couldn't see it. I zombie walked into the kitchen, sorting through cabinets to find coffee or aspirin, or both. It was just as empty as the bedroom. Barely any food, barely any dishes. Clearly, I inherited my distrust of material objects from my father. Whereas my mother had our entire house filled with pictures and projects, and when she baked, she filled the counters to the brim so there wasn't a space at all. That was the only thing I think I inherited. Other than my knack of swearing and my constantly tan skin. Sometimes, as a kid, in fits of utter disparaging defeat, my mother would look at me, and I would be jealous of her grey eyes and paler skin. And she would look at me and see my father and tell me so in ways that I was not always sure were compliments and others when they were not so much digs.

"I don't know," she pressed. "Come home already." I sighed and settled for water and staring out of the window above the sink that overlooked the street below, now busy with honking cars and people, going everywhere and anywhere and not even knowing that I existed at all.

"I'm almost done," I promised. "Just have to empty this place out and meet with the lawyer. Should only be a few days to get the papers done. I'll take the first offer."

"Do you want me to come over there?" she offered again, for the fiftieth time. I rolled my eyes and scratched my arm absently, still surveying, still spying on the people below like God probably did from time to time. "I can hop on the train and be there this afternoon."

"You can't," I reminded her again, for the fifty-first time. "You have little Maxim, and he cannot make the trip yet." She huffed. "Besides, I am fine."

"You drank yourself silly last night," she interjected.

"Just so," I decided. I walked into the bathroom to survey the damage. My face was the expected level of disheveled. My neck, however, was the most unexpected shade of romanced. "Jesus Christ," I gasped, stretching my neck in the mirror and looking at it through the corner of my eye appraisingly. The phone nearly fell. My neck hurt a bit to the touch.

"What?" Lili asked dismissively. She was not paying attention, and was, most likely, cleaning up Cheerios thrown in all directions by my nephew. "I'm allowed to worry," she continued to ramble.

I hesitated, then touched the mark softly again. And vaguely I remembered getting into bed. More importantly, I remembered stumbling and laughing like I hadn't in months down the street, right in the middle, between the two yellow lines of the road. I remembered struggling with the keys in the door. I remembered that girl, Gail, yes, I remembered her kissing me again. I closed my eyes and turned the water on. I had kissed her the first time. I wasn't drunk enough to forget that part, unfortunately. I suppose I hadn't drank enough to completely forget it all.

"What are you doing, Hol?" I heard the phone as I placed it on the counter. I splashed myself with water, rubbing and taking a deep breath.

I stared at myself hard. I remembered her hands in my hair. Oh god, I remembered sounding so pitiful and needy. I swallowed, slightly disgusted at myself. Oddly proud at the same time. That made me nauseous; the thinking and remembering and all of it.

I remembered inviting her up. I remember her leaving before I even opened the door. I had flashes of her hands on my hips and the handle or something from the door digging into my back. And when I blinked there was her lips on my neck and my hands gripping her coat. I remembered her leg between my own and her hips pinning my hips. There were humiliating glances of my shameful use of it. And oh my God. Coquine. I accused myself.

"I made out with a stranger," I whispered, picking up the phone again. I never lost eye contact with myself in the mirror. My fingers went back to touching the mark on my neck. "Hard," I nodded, stretching to the side to see it again. I frowned the frown of inspection.

"What?!" I heard her yell. "You did wh-?"

"I have to call you back later, Lil" I decided and hung up shortly. I stared at myself again. "Merde."

Last night had been a first. I didn't drink, so heavily, usually. I wasn't sure what did it. Perhaps it was the empty apartment. Perhaps it was firing the employees of the flower shop. Maybe it was the dingy and horrible smell of the flowers rotting in the fridges. I hated flowers and their almost manufactured smell that ruined everything it infiltrated. Most likely, it was the fact that he died. Or that he'd been murdered. Or that he had paintings I'd done when I was six hanging up by the cash register.

I hadn't expected it to be her, on the beach. I hadn't expected anyone. I wanted to be alone and I wanted to spend one night forgetting my father. That shouldn't have been difficult since I knew maybe three things about him in total.

I plopped onto the edge of the tub and racked my brain for anything else, but instead the same fragmented movie played itself in my head. I acted quite eagerly. But if I was remembering correctly, so had she. She did this to me. I felt the spot on my neck again. And I wasn't sure if I'd ever see her again. Maybe that was for the best, or else I'd end up throwing myself at her worse than I already had. But she was gorgeous and she laughed and smiled with all of her teeth. And those eyes were like... Yes. I could not see her again, and I most likely wouldn't because I had things to do and I had to get home and that was that.

I pushed it all from my brain. I tried. I showered and scrubbed the sand from my body. I scrubbed the thoughts from my head. I scrubbed the words from my mouth and the sounds from my ears and the mark from my neck. Only the scrubbing made it worse.

And that was how I allowed the day to start. I dressed and simply started, distancing myself from the unpleasantness of the task at hand simply by doing it. I opened the grate to the shop after a slight struggle. And slowly, I brought everything outside to the sidewalk. I put out the tables and I put out any displays we had, and I put a sign that said it was free. And I did this until everything was out. And I unplugged the cases, and I turned off the fridge, and I threw everything else into the dumpster in the ally. By lunch it was empty and people started to take flowers, thanking me for the kindness, hugging me, laughing and making their own arrangements. That part was wonderful. That part was nice.

I threw the paintings I did when I was just a kid into the dumpster as well. Along with the clothes in the drawers of the dresser and in the closet. There wasn't much to begin with, which made it easier. I worked tirelessly and I worked silently. I pulled the sandy sheets from the bed and I threw them away as well. I pushed the bed down the stairs and propped it in front of the store. I did the same with the couch, sliding it down the stairs and asking a passerby to help me lug it near the bed. The coffee table came next. And I piled the odd assortment of books onto it. I propped up another sign with bigger letters, reading FREE. The sun started to leave for the day and with that, my arms grew tired and weak.

There were still tables of flowers left when the street lights kicked themselves on. I left it all there. I left the doors open. I didn't care. I walked across the street a few shops down and I grabbed a case of beer, matching the one that had expired in my father's fridge. In the next shop, I ordered a pizza and waited there, watching people look at the sidewalk.

An entire day had passed, and I was another step farther away from my father. When I was seven, he was a pilot and jetted off to every corner of the globe. I had a map traced from an encyclopedia in the library tucked beneath my pillow and I would stare and point to places I bet he was landing or leaving. When I was eight, I had an entire construction of him as a person. He was back in France. He was an optometrist who played soccer every Tuesday and picked me up from school every day. When I was nine, he was in Spain, running a cruise ship. When I was ten, he was a famous musician, and I learned how to play a few songs on guitar to prove how like him I could be. When I was eleven, he was in Sweden, hunting and fishing. When I was twelve, he was in Australia because he was a professional stage actor. When I was thirteen, I killed him, and he'd been dead until a week ago when I got the call that told me he was actually dead.

From the stool looking at the window, I watched a family strolling along. A father gave the girl and woman a tulip each, bowing like a chivalrous knight. A woman walked by next as I followed them with my eyes. She perused and took a book. Two teenagers sat on the couch, bounced for a moment, hopped off and continued laughing down the street.

I grabbed the pizza when they called my number and I crossed the street again, flopping down on the couch. Taking in the small nook of the city that my father once lived in was much better from this vantage point. I felt as if everyone's eyes who passed, some who took flowers, some who asked how much until I told them free, all of them, they seemed to understand exactly what I was feeling. I appreciated that, because I wasn't so sure. I just knew that I wanted to be home. I alternated to sipping from the bottle of beer I opened and eating the pizza. Well deserved and such. I wanted to be home and never have to come back here. I wanted to be home and go back to school. I wanted to go home and hold Maxim. I wanted to go home and have my mother kiss my cheeks. I ate more pizza. I drank more of the beer. It was horrible.

"Allô?" I asked when the phone was answered. I crossed my legs on the coffee table and motioned for a homeless man to help himself to a slice of pizza. He politely declined and kept walking, turning back as if I were scary.

"Holly!" Lilli was excited. She was excitable. "What happened to you?"

"I just needed a minute," I decided, playing with the ring of condensation left by the bottle on the couch.

"How are you, ma chérie?" she had a soft voice which meant concern. I took a deep breath. There was a bit of summer in the air now. It was coming and it was eagerly pushing at the spring.

"Alive," I shrugged for myself. "Tired," I said more authoritatively.

"How is it going?" She shushed her husband in the background. I heard a door click shut.

"Good, good," I decided, sipping gently from the bottle. I crossed my legs again and cozied into the couch. "I have everything emptied out. Tomorrow the agent comes by and we agree on a price."

"That's fantastic," she reminded me.

"Yes," I agreed, looking at the pale darkness in the sky. Though night had come swiftly and on eager legs, it was no match for the lights of the city. I wondered what the stars all though, outshone by something so stupid as fluorescent apathy. Instead the streets projected themselves into the sky and ruined the night.

"Just think," she started again. I heard the lighter. She smoked in the garage so her husband wouldn't know sometimes. "You can forget it all in a few days. You'll be home, in your apartment, worrying about brains."

"Yeah," I sighed. "That would be nice."

"Life is easier without a dad anyway," she decided after a long draw. I itched at the label on the bottle nervously. "Did you take care of the body?"

"It will be cremated tomorrow," I felt my feet twitching, my body nervous for reasons I couldn't pinpoint.

"And then?" she prodded.

"I guess I'll put it with the rest of his stuff," I looked at the 'free' sign on the coffee table.

"You could do something nicer you know, it wouldn't kill you."

"You couldn't possibly know that."

When I looked at my feet, I saw a leg beside it. It was pale and I saw it only until it was hidden by the edge of a black dress. Lili prattled and scolded. I followed the hips to hands, crossed in front of them and holding a clutch. I let my eyes continue, as if I had a choice. They really moved on their own. The moved as they wanted.

"Tell me about this make out fest you had last night, now," Lili pleaded. "I've been dying to know all day. Is there someone? Who are they? What do they look like? Was it good?" There were more words, but I couldn't follow.

She waved a bit and gave me a smile. I sat up quickly and kicked a book off of the table. She looked like a million bucks and I was covered in dust and possibly residual sand.

"I have to call you back," I interrupted Lili and hung up as she asked why.

For unknown reasons I stood up awkwardly.

"Hi," I managed finally.

"Quite a set up you've got here," she observed, not moving, but simply gazing at it all on the sidewalk.

"What are you doing here?" I decided that was appropriate.

"I was on my way home from dinner with my family," she shrugged. "My head needed clearing, and my feet brought me here." I felt my eyes all over her. She was nervous. I was nervous as well. We were both nervous and our nerves betrayed us for reasons that didn't make sense. I stared at her, trying to figure it all out.

"Would you like a drink?" I offered, only moving to hand her a bottle from the box by my feet.

"Thank you," she drawled, taking it and throwing the cap on the table.

"Please," I gestured to the chair and couch. "If you've got no where else to be, why not be here?" She smiled and sat, pulling the jacket about her a bit more snuggly.

"So, you're cleaning shop after one day?" she observed, looking at the flowers and collection of picked over junk.

"Oui," I nodded, taking another gulp. She was here, and she had those legs, and I couldn't help it, so I guzzled. "This was not for me."

"You've got an entire life in another city," she observed, looking out at the street and the cars and the people that passed.

"Something like that," I nodded. "Tell me, did I make a good story to tell? Did you burst upon the page?"

"It hasn't been told yet," she shrugged, drinking again. I watched her neck from the corner of my eye. "But I wrote myself silly this morning."

"Well, there's that," I returned to watching with her.

"I'm sorry, for that," she motioned only subtly with her head towards my neck. We were on opposite ends of the couch, and she had literally marked me twelve hours before. "I hadn't realized. I didn't think. I barely remember..."

"It's fine," I traced it with my free hand, knowing where it was, having memorized it this morning. "What's a little war wound between friends."

"I suppose you could call us that," she shrugged, kicking her feet up so they, too, were on the coffee table.

"Who are you?" I lulled my head to look at her as she stared intently at the bottle.

"This is terrible, by the way," she ignored me. I laughed without knowing quite why. I placed my empty bottle on the table and grabbed another, chuckling slightly as I did.

"It really is," I realized again. "But, as my mother says, n'ayez pas peur et se sentent aucune douleur," I held up the neck of my bottle. She tapped hers along the side with a smile, though curious, and still not understanding, but enjoying an excuse to drink.

"Now we are quite a pair, aren't we?" she murmured, sinking back into the couch.

"We could be," I mused.


End file.
